Miss Evers' Boys

Trailer—Miss Evers' Boys

source: Miss Evers' Boys

This very solid movie is a recreation of the Tukseegee experiments, in which a group of African American men were lied to about receiving treatment for syphilis, and were simply allowed to die from the disease as a part of a government "study" even though a completely effective treatment (simple penicillin) had been found early on. There's a good performance here from Alfre Woodward as Eunice Evers, the compassionate nurse who signs on to help with the treatment program and then, after the funding for the program runs out, stays with the program once it becomes a study of how the men will fare without treatment. She gets caught up in the lie, insisting to the end that something worthwhile had come out of this experiment, but throughout the movie has definite moral qualms about this which are overcome by her desire to care for the men who are dying of the disease. It's a very sad fact that this is a true story. It's treated as a flashback, as Miss Evers testifies before a U.S. Senate Committee hearing on the experiment. The study apparently ran for forty years (beginning in 1932) and most of the afflicted men died without receiving any treatment for the disease. The closing captions tell us that the survivors and the families of those who died received financial compensation of ridiculously small amounts, and that it was not until 1997 that the United States Government (through President Clinton) actually apologized for what had been done. This is a very sad movie almost the whole way through - certainly not one that will lift your spirits, but it's an important movie about something that should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.

This is a tough one to review. For me, the subject is horrifying, and that the country I live in would do this is sickening, though of course, the U.S. President today would probably green light this kind of human suffering in a minute, in light of his recent actions against minorities. Some 400 odd men are observed, but not cured, and the justification is for the betterment of the "race" and that those men's sacrifice would be for the greater good. Yeah, tell that to those men, who could have been cured with one shot of penicillin! So the subject = 5 stars. But the movie isn't that great. The romance subplot is really boring and uninteresting. And the quality of both the film and the sound is poor, though that might be the disc I watched. I would say you should watch it, due to the importance of the topic, but maybe skip any dating/romance scenes between Alfre Woodard and Laurence Fishburne, two dang fine actors who could not save those scenes. Oh, and just to see and hear Ossie Davis is always worth it!

"MEB" tells the story of the infamous "Tuskeegee Syphilis Study" by building the docudrama around a black nurse (Woodard) who hailed from the black community which was the focus of the study. The polished and well crafted film spends equal time with the lives of the Macon County black sharecroppers and the questions of medical ethics the study raised resulting in an entertaining as well as informative watch. A nice mix of docu and drama, fact and fiction.

Most viewers agree that the betrayal of Nurse Evers and Dr.Brodus was heinous. Regardless of whatever medical oath is taken, God's Commandments come first. And that goes for the military also. What makes Nurse Ever's and Dr.Brodus's actions more fiendish is the fact of allowing these men to live normal lives while participating in this study. Normal as being, continuing to have sexual relations with their unknowing wives, as well as other women in their community. Giving birth to children from those sexual relations in which those children entered the world infected over a 40 year period. They speak of numbers (412), but in fact , it really numbered into the thousands considering that several generations of men, woman, and children were infected through this study. In my eyes, that amounts to genocide which was sanctioned by the CDC.

Eunice Evers is a nurse who gets involved in treatment trials of Afro-Americans in the south for syphilis. She helps the doctors treat many hundreds of men but then the Government cuts the funding and replaces it with funding for a study that the disease works the same in blacks as much as whites. However the study removes the treatment for a set period and lets the men slowly fade away. From the HBO stable of TV movies, I was attracted by the fact that it was based on a true story that I was not aware of, plus it had a few good actors in the lead roles. The story is potentially quite moving and I don't know why the tvm didn't manage to bring that across very well. It was told reasonably well but it never had me really touched or moved. That said the story was still quite good, even if it could easily have lost a bit of running time – the senate hearing was a good frame for telling the story. It was just a major problem for me that the film wasn't gripping and wasn't powerful, I mean, the Government sanctioned these men's deaths for the greater good – why isn't this film setting TV sets alight!? The cast are pretty good in the main roles but not as strong in support. In support the actors mainly just do some mugging and play African-American workingmen stereotypes. Woodard is a good actress and gives a great performance in the lead. Fishburne and Morton lend support with small but important roles and the support cast have a few nice character pieces. Overall this is an uninvolving film and I don't really understand why at all; the story is true and powerful and the cast are all reasonably good. However the film is flat for most of the telling – it's worth seeing once but it is more of a slog than it should be.

A few years ago I read the book "The Tuskegee Syphilis Study" by Fred Gray and it mentioned in there how inaccurate the movie "Miss Evers' Boys" was. I finally had the opportunity to watch "Miss Evers' Boys" and I can say that it is a travesty how inaccurate it is. "Miss Evers' Boys" would lead you to believe that a Black doctor, Doctor Sam Brodus (Joe Morton), and a Black nurse, Eunice Evers (Alfre Woodard), were in effect running a study on syphilis in Black men and how it would affect the body when untreated. They were funded by, and given direction by the U.S. government, but Dr. Brodus and Nurse Evers essentially did all the heavy lifting (including the deceptions). And the movie was very ambiguous with its protagonist Miss Evers. They tried to make her a sympathetic character while also making her the most complicit in perpetuating the lie being told to the infected men. In fact, the movie made it seem like she was pivotal in making sure the men continued to believe they were being treated when they weren't.; as though she was so unscrupulous as to know that the men were not being treated, but kept up the lie on her own accord for the sake of Science. That and proving that African Americans were just as committed to science as whites. Fact: The men were never treated, not even once, though the movie made it seem there was treatment at the beginning. Fact: All of the supervisors and supervising doctors were white. Dr. Brodus (real name Dr. Brady) never supervised Miss Evers (real name Miss Rivers). Fact: This study was conceived, financed, executed, and administered by the federal government. The African American medical professionals who participated in it were victims as were the 623 African American participants (not 412). Fact: Nurse Evers (Nurse Rivers) never had a romantic relationship with any of the patients and she never escorted any of them to juke joints, night clubs, bars, or other entertainment places. She was a professional. This movie is beyond disappointing such that when a few of the survivors saw it in 1997 they asked that the inaccuracies be dispelled. So, what can I say good about a movie that falsely depicts a true event? Nothing. I can't say anything good, except kudos that you revealed that there was such an abominable study that lasted for 40 years.

I had extreme doubts before watching this movie. I mean, it's a made for TV film, and I was assigned to watch it for an ethics portion of my biostatistics class. It is hands down the best movie I've ever seen made for television (although I admit I haven't seen all that many). It has excellent acting, and it deals with the subject from an interesting point of view-- instead of coming from the eyes of a patient, it's from that of a caregiver. It's historically accurate, but it still tells a compelling story. While it illustrates how far the United States has come (in terms of minimizing racism), it still is an example of how racism is prolonged in the media. Had this movie gotten more funding and gone to the big screen, I'm sure it would've won some awards. But I suppose America still isn't ready to face its gruesome past.

I missed the beginning of the movie and thought it was just fiction, just to find out after a few years (when Clinton announced to give an apology) that this was a true story. It was right then and there that I lost my last believe in America. The movie is brilliant and the actors did some superb work. The story gives a good view of how things could have been back then. It also shows that things happen far beyond our influence, and that we voters are not really in charge. If the story is twisted,as some say, why did they only use black people. Why did Clinton apologize? Another lie is the use of penicillin far in the fifties. Penicillin treatment started in the early forties and became standard procedure in the mid-forties. Even Al Capone was treated in penitentiary years earlier. This shows how important black people are in the USA. I know that right now these things still go on. In a few years, more black, Latino and other poor "not white" Miss Evers Boys will be discovered. Slavery never stopped. Only the methods are better disguised and refined. I hope that more of these stories will reach the world. There is way too much injustice in this world. And not only against blacks. These kind of movies raise our moral standards. Pardon my poor English.